Regions followed

Profession: I worked for the Davis Food Co-op from February 1, 1989 to March, 2016. I often led new member orientations, tours for visitors or classes, and otherwise got to interact a lot with members and shoppers. I am now an Alternate Director of the Co-op. Because of my long involvement with the DFC and other local cooperatives, please revert my edits about it if I stray too far into meddling.

I have also spent significant time over the years working with Solar Community Housing Association, and with the Whole Earth Festival. I don't have any formal tie to either now, but I certainly try to keep in touch with all the volunteers who make these unique resources available to our community.

Personality: I chose a photo of me taken by a friend after a full day of dance performances at a Renaissance Fair somewhere in Northern California (can't remember exactly which one, though). It shows me tired, but happy and willing to eat, drink and talk for just a little longer. That's a good day for me, and that should give you some insight into my personality.

I like to dance, especially Irish and Scottish dancing with Siamsa le Cheile and Raven Valley Irish Dance school. I like to sing, especially with friends like my partner, Donna Lemongello. I like to spend time in the beautiful world that surrounds us. I love to read, and sometimes to write about what I've read. This photo was taken by my sister Laurie and shows (back row) me, my nephew Brendan Marshall, his dad Dan Marshall, (front row) Donna Lemongello, and my mother, Pat Walter. Lenny the dog is posing adorably in front of Pat and Donna.

Lenny: After more than sixteen years of faithful companionship, Lenny still would not give up and was starving to death. So on June 2, 2008, Donna and I said goodbye and had him euthanized. He was the dog waiting cheerfully outside of Briggs Hall for about a decade (under the ramp past the stairs you see in the right-hand photo on the Wiki page). He had many friends and fans; we miss him very much.

Comments:

Thank you. I respect his right to an opinion, and I'm fine with people thinking highly of Mike. I can't make a crusade out of it, but I dislike it when people simplify an issue (e.g. Covell Village) in a way that obfuscates. I'm always working on how to express my views succinctly yet accurately. — DougWalter

2007-06-26 20:42:29 I commend louis on his overall enthusiasm and support of a project designed by local builders and developers. It was a remarkable development with more environmental features than anything else being built locally today. Stop sugar coating the reason it failed.........Davis has become an elitist community, to buy a home here you must be high income, UCD affiliate, or a previous homeowner taking advantage of the appreciation gained over the years. It is not the family community long time Davis residents once enjoyed, where opportunity was available to all income levels. As the fortunate few examine the way they express themselves ie: dont take yourself so seriously.....Super Green Target comes in. —Jeffreymh

I don't find this comment fully comprehensible. I did talk with folks who were happy to see a project coming forward that wasn't from Lewis Homes, or Pulte, or Kauffman & Broad. It amuses me that you feel the elitism in Davis (which is real) is "the reason it failed" rather than the traffic that would be generated all through East Davis. Poor people and students don't particularly like choked streets.

But I'm not sorry that people are still debating the issues of building versus preserving ag land, of traffic traded for accomodating new residents, and of what design we want for Davis of the future. There are going to be fewer natural resources, so the human resources had better improve!

That said, isn't there a better place for debate than on my user page? Or is this the hip way to "drive traffic" to my photos? — DougWalter

2007-06-30 22:38:30 How totally cool that the Capital O has disappeared from the DFC page! It makes me feel that ranting has a purpose on the wiki! :) —DougWalter

2007-09-26 12:17:30 Ha ha. I like that you abbreviated your own name. You went through SMF? You know you have to tell me what airline you were flying and where you were going. (You can't NOT tell these things to aviation nerds, it kills them.) That's a shame, it's always nice to see people you know outside of the airport. Have a good one! —MichelleAccurso

2007-09-26 23:03:53 Yoiks! I just noticed that I'm wearing the same blue scarf in both photos — it has woodblock prints on it by my friend M. Lauren Washburn, a fantastic artist. —DougWalter

Thanks Ed (along with others who've expressed concern other ways). I'm alive and mending with reasonable speed. I couldn't really walk around the house easily yesterday, and today I'm well enough to go back to work. I think I was lucky — and I'll endorse quality helmets for any- and everyone! —DougWalter

2007-12-26 10:13:20 Thanks for the tip Doug. I know about the site, but I just couldn't picture what buildings were there. Are there tin sheds there? The superfund page does not illuminate. —EdHenn

2008-02-02 00:52:37 Doug, thank you, you are quite kind! And it is always my pleasure to feed the lovely people of the DFC. —PopsicleGirl

2008-12-10 21:27:41 Hi Doug, I remember participating on a Co-op committee years ago which was developing a new landscape plan for the parking lot after the remodel. There was a lot of talk about adding fruit trees, making a kind of working orchard out front, work committees to do the pruning, etc. It was all pretty idealistic. All I could think about was fruit plopping down onto cars on hot summer days. Fortunately (or not), wiser heads prevailed. The figs may be a relic of that whole process! —DonShor

2008-12-12 12:24:57 Now you did it! It's up to you now to change that to past tense later tonight! ;D —JabberWokky

2008-12-14 11:37:37 Hey now... don't joke about that. Having an incorrect tense on a wiki entry once killed my father. It was in the great grammar winter of '13, and a stray "is", caught by the gale winds, lodged in his leg. Later that winter he developed a fatal case of the gerunds. —JabberWokky

2009-02-09 15:41:07 digdug did you put the souperbowl on the events calender? —StevenDaubert

2009-04-26 19:40:34 And nice catch on Mitchell！ I was following the MSNBC draft list, and they had him erroneously listed as a UCD player (I should have double checked). And, you're right about coloring the table rows; it's a lot easier to read. —TheAmazingLarry

2009-07-16 09:14:17 Yeah, I kinda guessed they may have closed, which is why it was a seed... I had planned to look up and see if they were still open. Thanks for the edit. —JabberWokky

2009-08-13 18:28:24 Hey Doug Tell Donna her old friend from Morristown High is looking to get in touch. Still here 80 Maple Ave. Morris Plains, NJ 07950 —magdaskitchen@yahoo.com

2009-10-04 15:43:44 Have you given a listen to Blackmore's Night? I'm not saying you'd like it, but you might. A friend here found that I liked Steeleye Span and Fairport Convention and we had a brief listening party at his place. He was picking out songs, so I can't speak for the band in general (and yes, it's Ritchie Blackmore of Deep Purple). —JabberWokky

2009-10-28 18:45:07 This week and next week are the two biggest weeks for midterms. All my classes this quarter have their midterms in this period. I know that myself and OliviaY were kept away by studying. Yes, we could have changed the date, but eh.... —WilliamLewis

Too bad, then, but I guess it's ultimately an "eh..." and catch you both sometime in the future. —DougWalter

2009-12-16 19:25:02 I think any phrase that uses "hegemony" or more than two repetitions of a word falls into that category. EGREGIOUS use of CAPITAL LETTERS just makes me think of Zippy the Pinhead. —JabberWokky

2010-01-20 12:21:35 SCHA is currently cooperative in name only. Snarky or not, it's true. :( —PxlAted

2010-12-30 18:29:40 I wouldn't give up just yet. The discussion isn't done. —WilliamLewis

2010-12-30 20:38:09 You think the link to info about Mr. Reynolds is truly not good for the public at large, or is it that you work at the Co-op and are, on some level, associated with him through that source and therefore feel the need to support him or face some type of retribution? —Wes-P

I'm going to treat this as a serious inquiry, even though I find the implications potentially insulting: no, I think that the Food Co-op is sufficiently public that I could draw attention to any substantive attempt to retaliate or impose a "quid pro quo." Plus, as a very long time employee, I probably can survive some subtle attempt [grins]. I stated in a comment that I consider Mr. Reynolds a friend (maybe not a boon companion, but definitely not "just a professional acquaintance"), and I care about DavisWiki and not using it as a weapon. So I am trying to balance a lot of competing interests & perspectives on editing this page, and on how this wiki should treat businesses. I guess I should thank you for asking, if there's anyone else who thought that might be the case, 'cause you gave me a chance to say how I see the "story behind the story." —DougWalter

It was, and still is, merely an inquiry. I meant no offense and apologize if any was made. I have been on the receiving end of retaliation by a former employer in the past (not a wiki reference) when I was involved in a PSM about job safety down in the bay. The employer took it as an attack since he was violating OSHA codes. I was just curious if this is what you feared and why you were seemingly supporting the attorney's side of things, or if you genuinely felt it did a larger harm than good making the information available. — Wes-P

2011-01-01 11:39:28I posted this on the Talk page, but wanted to make sure you saw it. Either you're skimming over a lot of stuff, or you're being somewhat blind to the efforts going on due to your concern for somebody you know (which is understandable; frustration doesn't exactly lead to wishing to read through details of conversations): Regarding inconsistency: What are you talking about? There has been a fair bit of effort expended here and elsewhere to forge exactly what you're talking about. You're saying that there's some kind of "picking on him" going on, when there is a brand new interwiki map to the CalBar that is set up so that we can link the record of every attorney, and there are a few attorneys — like law professor Richard Alcauskas — on whose profiles the new link formats are being tested on for community feedback before all the attorney entries on the wiki are linked to their public bar association profiles. I'm rather horrified that you either missed or are glossing over the fairly comprehensive, multi-person discussion going on about how to best format and make these links for all attorney entires thought this was some kind of selective badgering. Please read through this and the other talk pages and note that there are several people working on a large project across the wiki. Stephen just happened to be the first one done because he happened to be the first attorney somebody noted something like this about. He's not some kind of singled out victim of lynching, and you are dismissing a great deal of thought, discussion and earnest concern by several people trying to figure out how best to present this type of information ethically and with consideration for all facets of the community. —Evan 'JabberWokky' Edwards, jw.dw@timewarp.org

2011-06-07 20:26:06 Your edit just now reminded me of a British comedy skit where people are wading through swamp in the heart of Africa or something, all looking determined and worn down, and a chipper mailman zips in and hands one of them a package and zips out again. —JabberWokky

Lovely image. Tut, tut: we can't tolerate shoddy grammar in the part that will still be here if every comment is deleted (which, as I understand it, isn't being proposed at this time). I, too, love the Jerry Springer Header.

2011-11-19 14:43:01 I don't like where you are going with the "apparent", and the footnote to the police chiefs (we were armed an in a huge group but those students could have overwhelmed us at any time)

grow a spine! it reeks of political correctness I expect more from you —StevenDaubert

2011-11-19 14:47:33 I just can't buy the lie, granted the students had numbers, it's just the body language of all the officers (including pike) don't look / act threatened, until they precipitated the issue —StevenDaubert

That's my interpretation as well, but I think it's an interpretation from someone who was in bed while this was going on. Hence I thought it wise to be temperate, lest a helicopter video suddenly emerge. But I don't feel strongly about that one word. DW

2012-05-16 22:28:59 Just trying to highlight your words and start a space in which they can grow as others add to them. —JabberWokky

2012-06-05 11:48:23 There was a now-deleted talk page for the original co-op page. On it Angel had said, "Should this page be redirected to "J Street Co-ops" instead of the other way around since there are now three J Street Co-op houses at that corner instead of one?" I'm actually not sure of the status. I just changed it based on what AY had posted. Feel free to correct it if its wrong.

2012-06-27 17:37:55 Sure, glad to help. The trick is that if you want an image to be to the right of a particular block of text, you put the code for the image above the text. —CovertProfessor

2013-04-26 17:09:02 All the oaks are on the north side of the street on private property (the shopping center) and were there before all the infrastructure (power lines, street, and structures), I believe. Have you or your wife seen the list of some 60 trees that are being planted that day? Four are short (dwarf plum, purple-leaf plum), most are of moderate height (chitalpas), and some are tall-ish (3 blue oaks and 5 red oaks). As the shopping center trees do not fall within the control of the city, I haven't paid as much attention to them, but I can tell you that not all will be removed this year. They will leave some and control the growth chemically while new trees are established, to make a better transition. Believe me, as a member of the Tree Commission since 1986, I don't take the removal of trees lightly and I have planted more trees than I can count. I maintain the seedlings of Highway 113, dragging the water trailer out there behind my vehicle every three weeks from May to September (actually starting in March this year because of the dry winter). I am fully committed to maintaining and increasing the urban forest in and around Davis. The Claremont trees were in the wrong place at the wrong time. —DavidRobinson

2013-11-22 16:37:47 I could have sworn the trade illegalities were mentioned - also the Humus thing. C'est La Vie. I found the whole thing patently ridiculous from the start but my input at the time was less than stellar mainly b/c I was so jaded on the concept —StevenDaubert

2013-11-22 22:11:20 yeah I remembered it being a tiny bit larger I just wasn't sure :) —StevenDaubert

2013-12-14 13:14:28 Village Bakery may well be just set up to accept tips (and may not even be aware of it). That would put an authorization hold of a small amount on every bill. Kerfluffles like this have happened before on the wiki, and then everybody realized that it was a temporary charge by the transaction company. Or, of course, it could always be an employee pocketing money. That happens too. I'd say it was worth integrating either way. —JabberWokky

Good - don't want to send any grief to V.B. -DW

2014-01-08 21:37:26 Fair use is kosher on the wiki. A quote to support, illustrate or demonstrate a topic written about further on the page as a whole should be fine. And thanks for the updates and clarifications about the co-ops. It's good to get this history down from somebody who has been there. —JabberWokky

Thanks for the comments. I have been using the old, deleted comments on the Pacifico page, as well as my memories and links, to document. I'm glad it's appreciated, and some time it will probably be of use to someone. -DW

2014-08-07 13:53:18 I already filled it up. Pleased? Yeah, you caught me not reading the The Enterprise or The Bee. Maybe I should do that. I tend to read the national (i.e. ABC...) and international news, not the local. Maybe I should change my reading habits. —ConstantiaOomen

2014-08-07 15:18:08 I didn't know the expression of mileage very well. Is this true in your opinion: "But that’s not what YMMV means. What it means is just the opposite of what it says: YMMV acknowledges that the speaker knows there is material he or she (but really, let’s be honest: he) has failed or refused to address. YMMV performs a scoff: “I cannot be troubled to ponder options beyond my own immediate experience.” Or even worse, “I’ve considered that there are other possibilities, but I have deemed them unworthy of further attention.” YMMV is a way of feigning sympathy without meaning it." Source- So you wouldn't have any sympathy for me not reading The Bee etc.? —ConstantiaOomen

Constantia, please calm down. YMMV is a polite, nice way of saying, "that's how I see it, but I'm not insisting you can't have your own view point too, based on your life experience (i.e., "your mileage")." It is a term that is typically used to be friendly and indicate understanding and pleasant acknowledgment that other viewpoints are valid as well, and does not in any way warrant such an aggressive and negative response. Particularly when an observation is followed with a smile and stating outright that his thoughts on the subject were simply his opinion. —jw

* I'm afraid we have a culture (or personality, or both) clash here. I'm very calm, I was just asking about the true meaning of this expression. I didn't think Doug was mad or something, I saw that smiley too. But as a linguist (or: former linguist) I want to know the details of a language I want to embed in. Dutch people are very direct and sometimes brutally honest; I'm afraid my actions are being interpreted as 'aggressive' or 'negative'.

Well, some internet cultures in the Netherlands áre very rude and aggressive (for those who want to dive in: this infamous website), but I don't consider myself part of them. ConstantiaOomen